Category Archives: Legislature

Why shouldn’t charter schools go through the same process that traditional public schools use if it is good public policy to provide public charter schools with facility funding?

Why does this proposal create a process that bypasses biannual adequacy studies and the Division of Public School Academic Facilities and Transportation that every traditional public school must follow?

Why fund public charter school facilities when traditional public school facility needs remain unmet?

The existing funding for traditional public school facilities is already depleting, and was cut an additional $16 million annually last year to shore up the teacher health insurance policy.

Shouldn’t we assess the needs for all public school facilities in Arkansas and the current level of equity in our facilities, including those of public charter schools?

The overall needs of Arkansas’ traditional public school facilities have not been comprehensively reviewed since 2004.

Has there been a needs study for charter schools to justify creating a new state funding and facility program ahead of meeting traditional public school needs?

Don’t funding decisions made without comprehensive assessments have the potential to create inequitable systems that fail to meet the needs of some students?

What are the rules for how these charter school facility dollars will be used?

Which charter schools will qualify for facilities funding and which will not?

Who will own the buildings in cases where private money is also used for facilities that are managed by private organizations?

Who is responsible for facility loan repayment if a charter school is unable to repay the facilities loans from this fund?

What happens to the facilities that were partially paid for with state tax dollars if a charter school closes or is closed by the state for nonperformance?

Will charter schools have to show efficiency in their use of State Facility Revenue?

Will there be State Building Standards used when State Facility Revenue is used for charter schools?

Does this precedent create an ongoing responsibility to provide public charter schools with facility funding?

Is the Legislature prepared to raise new revenue to add a new category of schools to the facilities obligation of the state?

Could we place the state in legal jeopardy for adequacy or equity by funding charter school facilities when we are not sure that we are meeting the basic facility needs of many traditional public schools?

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on facilities funding for Arkansas public schools. We feel that the educational needs of the state’s students require adequate and equitable facilities regardless of whether the facilities are for charter schools or traditional public schools. We were therefore concerned when a proposal for funding charter schools moved forward without going through the adequacy study process that funding for traditional schools has followed.

We hope you will consider these concerns about the funding for traditional schools prior to making a decision on funding for charter schools.

1) The biennial educational adequacy study has failed to reassess the facilities program and its results in individual school districts since the original assessment of need in 2004. A reassessment would reveal that while many school facility conditions are improved, there is still much need particularly in poor property wealth school districts in rural areas. The state’s wealth index has lessened the inequities and inadequacies but has not eliminated them. Video documentation of these needs was presented to the Education Committees in April, 2013.

2) The large one-time influx of general improvement funding [$500 million in 2008] has been spent down. Facilities expenditures for the last four years have averaged approximately $105 million. Current spending levels cannot be maintained with the $55 to $60 million annually the state has been investing, even before the recent cut.

3) It has been suggested that the state’s major school facilities needs have been met. First priority is being shifted to districts with student growth needing expanded facilities. This assertion is based on a very low bar—warm, safe, and dry.

4) One stream of funding for facilities from a pre-Lake View facilities program in the amount of approximately $16 million per year was diverted to use for teacher health insurance. While we support solutions to the teacher health insurance problem, robbing facilities funding merely creates a larger deficit in a program already needing to replace the depleted one-time general improvement fund revenue.

5) Many districts have aged-out buildings that should have been renovated or replaced years ago. They have instead been patched to meet the lowest possible facility standard of warm, safe and dry. This is in contrast to districts that have substantial local resources to provide up-to-date modern facilities for their students through major renovations or new construction.

6) Districts with substantial local resources are to be commended for using them to the benefit of their students, but what about the districts without these resources? Some districts still cannot raise as much income per student as the districts with fewer mills but greater property wealth. The state wealth index has reduced but not eliminated the disparities.

7) Facilities standards have not been updated in the past ten years to incorporate up-to-date research on adequacy for current technology, current collaborative learning process, current integrated career and academic education programs, and current research on school climate and culture.

8) Available state money is being invested in a duplicate set of school buildings for charter schools while traditional public schools serving the over-whelming majority of Arkansas students are experiencing cuts to already inadequate facilities funding.

The Special Masters who reported to the Supreme Court in 2005 listed language in Act 1426 of 2005, “in order to satisfy the constitutional expectations of the Supreme Court, the state should: (1) provide constitutionally appropriate public school academic facilities for the education of each similarly situated child in the public schools of Arkansas, regardless of where that child resides within the state.”

To ensure the provision of equitable and adequate facilities to all the state’s students, we request that the public charter school funding proposal be part of the adequacy funding process and included in a comprehensive plan that addresses needs for facilities for all public schools.

Thank you for consideration of our request.

Sincerely,

Rich Huddleston
Executive Director, Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families

Brenda Robinson
President, Arkansas Education Association

Richard Hutchinson
Chair, Arkansas Opportunity to Learn Campaign

William El-Amin and Mark Robertson
Co-Chairs, Arkansas Citizens First Congress